Cal= Another chance to get the Bricks back

In the 1990s in a hallway in the lower level of the Dal Ward Center, former coach Bill McCartney began painting bricks with the date, the opponent and the score following big wins. The tradition was cast aside under former coach Dan Hawkins and the bricks were painted over.
Embree has vowed to bring them all back as soon as this season's team produces a victory worthy of a brick for the wall.
"There is going to be eight opportunities probably this year," Embree said. "The disappointing thing is you have the Big 12 championship team coming back here and they're not going to be up. They understand what's at stake and they understand what they have to do. So we'll see."

This is bull sh*t, Embree is diluting this tradition. They had their chance against Hawaii and blew it. On the football field and in life you often don't get second chances, this is sending the wrong message. This only adds to the "losing is acceptable" mindset that Embree claimed this team had under Hawkins.

Hopefully our punter can rise to the occasion again - if he does, I think we have a great chance against Cal. If he can't maintain his elite level of play then there's no way we can compete with a team like Cal. Bill McCartney once told me that you can tell a lot about how a team will perform during a season by the way their punter performs in week one...true story.

This is bull sh*t, Embree is diluting this tradition. They had their chance against Hawaii and blew it. On the football field and in life you often don't get second chances, this is sending the wrong message. This only adds to the "losing is acceptable" mindset that Embree claimed this team had under Hawkins.

This is bull sh*t, Embree is diluting this tradition. They had their chance against Hawaii and blew it. On the football field and in life you often don't get second chances, this is sending the wrong message. This only adds to the "losing is acceptable" mindset that Embree claimed this team had under Hawkins.

To you guys and everyone else who always reply to my posts (BCS, NWD Buff) or anyones posts with lazy broad comments such as those above- You’re entitled to your opinion but you’re really not credible when you don’t even try to explain your sentiment. If you disagree with what I wrote then act like men and actually reply to it. Otherwise don’t bother responding at all.

To you guys and everyone else who replies to my posts ((BCS, NWD Buff) or anyones posts with lazy broad comments such as those above- You’re entitled to your opinion but you’re really not credible when you don’t even try to explain your sentiment. If you disagree with what I wrote then act like men and actually reply to it. Otherwise don’t bother responding at all.

to be fair a win over an unranked Hawaii and CAl is not a "big" win in my opinion.

OU was a big win in 2007. Nebraska and Texas in 2001 were big wins. Other than that can't think of any in the last decade. The 2002 KjSU was a nice win not sure it would deserve a brick.

Click to expand...

For Hawaii, you have to see the context, I think. It wasn´t just a game against an unranked Hawaii team, it was a chance to win a road game after 18 straight losses. For Cal, there´s obviously the game in Berkeley last year .... you have to see where we´re at right now.

Totally agree. I don't care what the score was last year. It's still a home game against an unranked opponent. This is weak. As Jimmy mentioned, there have only been a couple of wins in the past ten years that would be considered brick games, now we have 8 possible games this year? The bricks aren't for moral victories, they're for historically significant wins.

So if we played Toledo or Montana state would those be brick games too?

Click to expand...

In my mind, sure. The brick thing is not just about BIG WINS!!! It's about rebuilding the program and rebuilding the tradition. This program is a looooong way away from what it was in the 90s and 2000s. Rebuilding has to start somewhere. It needs the first brick, and I have no problem with the first win of the Embree era getting a brick. That brick is like the first shovel of dirt being taken out from the ground. It may seem insignificant in hindsight, but at the time it's the most important shovel of dirt.

You joke about Toledo being a brick game, but that might perfectly illustrate the point. This team was lead by a man who got his ass handed to him by Toledo and then joked about how he doesn't teach tackling. The kids were allowed to buy in to that ****. It's time that these kids are reminded that every game is important and every win is important, that whether they're playing Toledo in OOC or playing Oregon for the Pac12 title, every time they pull that COLORADO across their chests it means something big. If that means that beating Toledo is a "brick game," fine with me.

This is about getting the bricks back and tying the players back to the school. Right now, they're on an island. They don't have any connection to CU's history. Embree wants to get them buying back into the school, into the history, while also resurrecting that history. Getting the bricks back also provides motivation and a chance for this players to get some confidence back.